monetary policy

NYT on the Mark on the Fed and Interest Rates by Dean Baker

We have been here before. Back in the mid-1990s the absolute consensus in the economics profession was that the unemployment rate could not get much below 6.0 percent without triggering inflationary pressures. This was a view held not only by conservative economists, but by liberals like Janet Yellen, Alan Blinder, and Paul Krugman. Fortunately, Federal Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan was not a mainstream economist. He argued there was no evidence of inflationary pressures, therefore he saw no reason to keep the unemployment rate from falling below the 6.0 percent threshold.

I wonder if Yellen, Blinder and Krugman preferred more government spending in comensation for rising rates, i.e. they wanted more government.

Better late than never but early is better still by Scott Sumner